Following the alert on the safety of glyoxylic acid issued by the French Anses, the European Commission has opened a stakeholder consultation. The aim is to gather sufficient information before consulting the SCCS.
The first alert on glyoxylic acid was issued in March 2024 by a team of French researchers, relayed by the Académie de Médecine.
The Anses (French National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety) took up the issue in June 2024, and confirmed, in January 2025, that glyoxylic acid, used in hair straightening products, can cause acute kidney failure.
The Agency recommended then that a risk assessment be carried out under the European Cosmetics Regulation to decide on a restriction or even a ban on this substance.
The call for data
The European Commission has heeded this call and, on April 9, 2025, launched a call for data open to all interested stakeholders: academic and other research institutes, EU countries’ authorities, manufacturers of cosmetic products, raw material producers and suppliers, consumers associations…
The objective is to gather comprehensive scientific information to assess the safety of glyoxylic acid in hair straightening products. The French National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES) has raised concerns about the potential renal toxicity from the use of hair straightening products at high temperature that contain glyoxylic acid and the related potentially unsafe exposure …
